I have been thinking a lot lately about how I will wrap gifts this year. I am trying to minimize the amount of waste used when wrapping gifts and here are my thoughts or what I have already done.
~The presents I shipped I used recycled wrapping paper or paper that the kids used for coloring
~Gifts for my family I will use magazines, catalogs, pillow cases, play silks, boxes, and anything I can find around the home.
~Gifts from Santa I will use some of our recycled wrapping paper
~Gifts for teacher I did not wrap at all...just tied a piece of red yarn around them
My challenge for you is to try and reduce your waste with wrapping paper this year. Choose 1 gift and wrap in something reusable or recycled! If you wish to do more, great!
Let me know if you have ideas on other 'green' ways of wrapping!
And check out Sustainable Baby Step's guide to making your own beautiful fabric wrapping paper!
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my mom started our family using cloth gift wrap years and years ago, and i am so proud we've continued to do it. she bought cheap yardage of christmas-y prints and then made, essentially pillow cases in all different sizes, with a few bits of ribbon sewed in on the side near the top, to close and make pretty. they're machine washable, and can be re-used forever! i know you've already listed the playsilk/pillowcase idea, this is just a variation on it. my son wrapped his dad's birthday present (yesterday) in pages from the fish and game rules, we found some great pictures of fish, which both dad and son like a lot. :) i like the map idea too. :)
ReplyDeleteI did some very similar things last year, including red yarn and recycled paper. This year I plan on making a bunch of drawstring bags in Christmassy fabric. We also have a million gift bags that we reuse over and over (and over and over) that I'd like to move out of the house once and for all (though it seems they are replaced as fast as they go). I'm not sure what to do about Santa gifts...
ReplyDeleteJust posted about our no-sew fabric wrapping endeavors. You do need an iron, but for those who aren't sewers out there, this is definitely an eco-friendly wrapping option. All our presents from Santa are wrapped this way. http://www.organizing-life.com/eco-friendly-gift-wrapping/green-living/
ReplyDeleteI love using foreign news papers, and the funnies. The tricky with foreign newspapers, you need to be able to understand them well enough to know that you aren't putting a front-page catastrophe on the front of your package.
I also like using mason jars for things like crayons, chocolate peppermint bark, homemade caramels, barrettes, and other small goodies.
Great post! Happy Holidays!
We only have one believer left, but everyone gets in on the game. Adults get Santa presents, too, now. At our house, the Santa gifts have never been wrapped at all. The items are presented very nicely, in front of the tree or around the house. The stuffed bear is propped in the child's seat at the breakfast table, napkin on it's lap. The doll clothes are put on the favorite doll (snuck from under the sleeping child's arm!) and the doll is placed on the new doll chair, etc. There is a bit of a hunt to find what Santa has left for you!
ReplyDeleteWe are giving our daughter's Lego sets this year and my husband has decided to make their name, out of Legos, and place it on top of the appropriate boxes.
Tiny gifts, in the stockings, are wrapped in pages from the newspaper and tied with red yarn. All that is recycled after the holiday; the newspaper for chicken bedding and the yarn in the scrap jar for crafts.
My children thought that Santa wraps or prepares their items at the house, so we don't have to explain how he got scraps of yarn from our jar. Of course he used our stuff, he was here!
Oh, one final thing: doing the toys this way started as a way to eliminate the five minutes that an adult has to pry the items out of the packaging while the child waits expectantly. We didn't set out to eliminate a big use of gift wrap, we set out to make that moment when our first daughter could hold her first baby doll happen that much quicker, without having to hear Mom or Dad curse the person who used 25 twist ties to anchor the doll in a box! ;-) This way the cursing takes place late on Christmas Eve, when Mom and Dad are properly fortified with appropriate treats and beverages. Its a big part of our tradition now to decide how the items will be presented.
ReplyDeleteCynthia, I LOVE the idea of just not wrapping santa gifts. I was so conflicted on this because I felt like they needed to be wrapped in xmas decorated paper. I am going to go with this idea and just not wrap them! Maybe tie some red yarn around and put them under the tree! Brilliant, thanks so much for sharing your ideas!!
ReplyDeleteSuzy